Collector wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 1:24 am
Wouldn't checkpoints require much of the same character, and item, stats variables as save anywhere? Perhaps not a few things like location coordinances or in a 3-D game, point of view, but most of the rest of it.
It depends on the game. Some open world games actually do use checkpoints, which I find very aggravating. The only time I've found this tolerable is when a game constantly saves and/or saves after any action. The former means you never lose progress, whereas the latter lets you construct a makeshift manual save.
The Arkham games (
Batman: Arkham Asylum,
Batman: Arkham City,
Batman: Arkham Origins, and
Batman: Arkham Knight), for instance, save whenever you do anything. So if I go in and out of the inventory screen, toss a batarang, jump into or out of the Batmobile, enter or leave a building, or even just move around a little, or quitting the game itself causes the game to save. The Arkham games even make backup saves just in case anything goes wrong with your save.
Would I prefer manual saves and quicksaves? Yeah, I would, but if a game doesn't include them, this is a somewhat satisfactory compromise in my opinion. At the very least, I never need to wonder, "When is the damn going to save?" and be forced to make a choice between playing until the game saves or losing progress.
That said... I don't know why the developers behind the Arkham games didn't opt for a manual/quicksave system since the save system they use ends up recording everything a manual/quicksave system would anyway. Maybe it's because you don't make any important decisions (Batman has a very defined personality) so they thought it was unnecessary. Whatever the case, it doesn't seem like they really saved themselves a whole lot of work.
MusicallyInspired wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 8:26 am
A lot of checkpoints take place after closed doors preventing you from returning so it doesn't have to save anything that came before.
(NOTE: I'm not arguing with you
)
Which is fine if it's a linear game with little-to-no character choices. Basically, if it's more of a hack-and-slash (and there's nothing wrong with that, those can be fun if you're in the right mood), then checkpoint saves CAN work. The only real concern here is if the checkpoint was designed to remember certain variables, such as health, mana/energy/ammo, consumables, etc.
If the checkpoint save does record all of that, then you could inadvertently get yourself into a situation where the game saves and you have very little HP left and practically no mana/energy/ammo to use. Unless you're an unbelievably talented player and have memorized everything in the game, especially enemy bosses, this would probably lead to a no-win scenario.
On the flipside, if the checkpoint save doesn't record it and instead "tops you up" when you load the checkpoint, this could lead to a situation very similar to "save scumming," which is one of the primary (and in my opinion, very flawed) arguments against manual saves and quicksaves.
I wish developers had games do what
Anachronox did: at the start of the game, you could choose between "saving when and where you want" or being limited to specific save points. Once you made that decision, that playthrough was locked in. I thought that was a great way of handling it.
Some other games have done similar things, like
Mount & Blade: Warband or
Thief (2014).
M&B:W lets you decide whether or not you want to be allowed to quit without saving. Enabling "quit without saving" means you can save and load however you want; however, disabling it means that you can't leave the game without forcing a save. Presumably this also limits you to a single save (I haven't tried it myself) otherwise there would still be earlier saves to load after quitting.
Thief (2014) gives you an options screen when starting the game that lets you massively configure specific settings, including the ability to save whenever you want. Back when this game was new, TotalBiscuit loved this so much he literally
raved about it during his video review.
And there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and people ranting on Steam forums about how Bethesda is "cheating them out of their money", and so on. Luckily, there's a way around this bug, but it's very frustrating.
). I'm a big proponent for manual saves. I'm just really playing devil's advocate for why they might have chosen not to implement them.